“If he’d ha’ let me, I’d ha’ tried to save Baldwin from beggary,” replied his father with a calm dignity that showed he had understood the implication. Jagger flushed hotly. “I didn’t mean that,” he protested and Maniwel said—“Right, lad; there’s no bones broken.” “Then would you have me let Inman go his own way, and play any devil’s trick he likes on us?” said Jagger, and his father shook his head. “Nay, lad,” he said with greater animation; “watch him and best him! You can’t please me better than by showing him you’re t’ best man o’ t’ two, so long as you keep on t’ Straight Road. But spare him a bit o’ pity, for hate’s same as a knife ’at lacks a haft—a tool ’at hurts him ’at tries to stab wi’t.” “It’s a bit too tough for my teeth, is your meat,” said Jagger. “Then just swallow t’ juice,” said his father, as a smile spread over his face and twinkled in his eyes; “and put t’ rest on’t out. Come lad; we’ll go in and see how t’ blanket’s going on.” CHAPTER XXVII IN WHICH NANCY PLAYS THE PART OF DETECTIVE A MILE away from the village the traveller on the Girston Road may pass a solitary and substantial farm and never know that he is within a field-length of the most alluring and perhaps the greatest of Mawm’s natural wonders. There is nothing in the configuration of the landscape that suggests the extraordinary. Low-lying hills on the right slope gently down to grey-green pastures which have been wrested from the moors. The road itself, hemmed in by loosely-built limestone walls, is little better than a cart-track, and runs out upon the moor when it reaches the last gaunt farm, a mile or two farther on. The hills on the left are loftier, but no less kindly in their sober green homespun, and the brook that tumbles over its rocky bed and roars beneath the bridge is not more boisterous than many another moorland stream. If, however, curiosity should cause you to leave the road at the stile, or if ignoring that provision for shortening your journey you pass through the yard at the back of the farm, and with the stream for your guide make your way up the narrowing valley, you will by and by acquaint yourself with the stupendous spectacle of Gordale Scar, a chasm “——terrific as the lair, Where the young lions couch.”